Alden Wicker is a freelance journalist living in Brooklyn. She covers sustainable fashion and living, personal finance, and other curiosities.

Andras Forgacs started getting calls from the last group of people he imagined would be interested in his company--fashionistas.

It was 2011, and he had just stepped away from his leadership role at Organovo, a startup that 3-D-printed skin tissue for medical use. It turned out, the fashion executives told him, leather is a gnarly industry. Livestock create one-fifth of the world's greenhouse gases, and an estimated one-third of leather hides produced end up in landfills. The demand for leather goods was booming, yet there were shortage issues, and synthetic leather alternatives performed poorly.

We all know that, as far as holiday gifts are concerned, it truly is the thought that counts, but as more shoppers wake up to fashion’s damaging effects on the environment, people, and animals (the industry is responsible for an estimated 5 percent of the world’s global carbon emissions and 4 percent of the world’s waste), the "thoughtfulness" of gifting has taken on a whole new meaning.

For most women like me, when a fine, silk blouse catches our eye in a clothing store, we don’t think much about the worms that made the silk. If you do, here’s the story you will typically find: A few days after silkworms disappear inside their cocoons, right about the time they finish spinning, the little pods are collected and submerged in boiling water. To make a pound of raw silk, up to 5,000 worms must die.

You may not be able to march into a shareholder meeting and demand the offending corporation overhaul its supply chain and offset all its carbon, but you can send a signal that you value more than just the bottom line, by engaging in impact investing.

If we agree that mass-produced fashion is awful, that garment workers shouldn’t die making our clothes, that rivers should not be poisoned just for a cheap T-shirt, and that 1.715 billion tons of CO2 released a year (or about 5.3 percent of the 32.1 billion tons of global carbon emissions) is way too much, what can we do to change it?

“I was urged to stop paying my bills to invest in more inventory. I was urged to get rid of television. I was urged to pawn my vehicle. I just had to get on anxiety meds over all of it because I’ve started having panic attacks.”

My journey down the rabbit hole started with this fact: “The global fashion industry is the second most polluting industry in the world.” You’ll hear this repeated at panels, on blogs and news sites, and anywhere else sustainable fashion is being discussed. Intuitively, it sounds true. But when I searched for the source, I couldn’t find it. No study, no official report. I asked every sustainable fashion industry expert I knew. Several said they would get back to me. A couple of experts pointed me to the Danish Fashion Institute, which in turn disavowed the fact.

As a sustainable lifestyle blogger, my job is to make conscious consumerism look good. Over the course of four years Instagramming eco-friendly outfits, testing non-toxic nail polish brands, and writing sustainable city guides, I became a proponent of having it all—fashion, fun, travel, beauty—while still being eco-friendly. So when I was invited to speak on a panel in front of the UN Youth Delegation, the expectation was that I’d dispense wisdom to bright young students about how their personal purchasing choices can help save the world.

But Saynt isn’t just another rich guy throwing an orgy in his mansion: He’s an entrepreneur who wants to disrupt the nascent sex-positivity movement, and ride it to wealth and fame. In May, his previous effort to throw a cutting-edge sex party succumbed to friction and hostility from the community he was trying to join. Would his most recent attempt blow up, or blow it?

These days, if you’re lucky enough to find yourself at a Michelin-starred restaurant, it’s an almost foregone conclusion that the ingredients will be sourced locally, seasonally, and sustainably.

But amid all the devotion to local terroir, foraging, heirloom produce, and pasture-raised meat from coddled livestock and fowl, there’s one segment of the restaurant industry that remains stubbornly in opposition to the slow food movement. In fact, when it comes to seafood, many of the world’s best restaurants fly in an endangered species for its patrons to feast on a nightly basis.

Besides being increasingly of the moment, they are all related to modern witchcraft, a movement that is being propelled out of the forest and into the mainstream. The hook-nosed, broom-riding, pointy-hat-wearing, cackling witches of yore have transfigured into hip, feminist, millennial women with slick websites and soothing advice on manifesting your dreams. Instead of a bubbling cauldron filled with eye of the newt, they’re slinging essential oils seeped with wild herbs.

Visitors who stepped into fashion retailer H&M’s showroom in New York City on April 4, 2016, were confronted by a pile of cast-off clothing reaching to the ceiling. A T.S. Eliot quote stenciled on the wall (“In my end is my beginning”) gave the showroom the air of an art gallery or museum. In the next room, reporters and fashion bloggers sipped wine while studying the half-dozen mannequins wearing bespoke creations pieced together from old jeans, patches of jackets and cut-up blouses. This cocktail party was to celebrate the launch of H&M’s most recent Conscious Collection. “H&M will recycle them and create new textile fibre, and in return you get vouchers to use at H&M. Everybody wins!” H&M said on its blog.

I’m at Pure House, a so-called millennial commune in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. It’s one of several millennial communes currently operating or under construction in New York City. One commune in the Financial District, The Loft, seems to revolve around drinking and other bro-tastic activities. Pure House sounds a bit more like me. It offers the opposite: fresh juice, discounts on activities like yoga at its event space in Williamsburg, plus spontaneous dinners and brunches in a positive community of like-minded, creative people.

A CEO who has run into so many PR disasters and has a dismal financial track record? Of course he should be fired. But then, American Apparel is unlike any other fashion brand out there, as I found out after speaking with current and former employees, Dov Charney’s supporters, and Charney himself. Because, despite the endless lawsuits, the sexts he allegedly sent employees, the viral video of the ex- CEO flaunting his penis in front of staff, the cult of Dov Charney lives on at AA.

If she fails to find a way forward for Johnny’s, it doesn’t bode well for the Garment District, for young designers who rely on the neighborhood to launch their careers, or for NYC as a fashion capital. But, if she succeeds, she could carve a space for other young people like her to succeed the older generation and keep the Garment District going for a few more decades.

Justin Marchacos came out of nowhere to play an acclaimed live set at the Cityfox New Year's Eve party. We thought maybe we just hadn't been paying attention, but when he told us that was his first set ever, we were floored. We visited him in his studio in Queens on Superbowl Sunday, getting a private live performance and hanging out talking for hours. Turns out, Marchacos loves telling stories. So we'll let him explain in his own words his biggest inspiration, how he landed on the Cityfox label, and how he came this close to messing up his very first performance in front of 1,500 people.

When the Williamsburg electronic music venue TBA got shut down, rumors swirled. Some swore it had to do with drug use. (No.) Others said they were a victim of Vice's buying spree. (Wrong block.) The truth, while not as sexy as a drug raid, is required reading for anyone involved in the nightlife scene in NYC.

Before recently bouncing down the runways of Marc Jacobs, Thakoon, Altuzarra, and Alexander McQueen, fur has been freshly reinterpreted into edgy silhouettes and colors — in other words, not your Upper East Side dame's mink. The number of fuzzy accessories available online (think purses and collars) has almost doubled in the past year. That comeback is bound to irk animal-lovers everywhere, which may not be entirely fair — how many of us pause before purchasing leather?

I write about sustainable fashion and travel, personal finance, modern sex, and other (often controversial) topics. My aim, above all, is to get at the truth (whether it's popular or not) and improve lives with my writing.

I'm currently traveling around the world with my husband until the end of 2018: South America through May, Portugal and Eastern Europe for the summer, and Southeast Asia in the fall.